NASCO Institute is just around the corner, and workshop descriptions, the Institute schedule, and registration are all live on the NASCO website. To get you pumped to register, here are five exciting things to do at Institute:
1. Go on the Detroit Tour
Friday, November 4, 12 pm - 6 pm
Detroit residents are spreading digital media skills, building wireless networks for the people, creating cutting edge arts and culture, tending urban gardens, and showing the rest of the world that another economy is possible. Join us for an interactive tour and discussion of media and education in the city. The tour will include visits to Trumbullplex [1], Heidelberg Project [2] , Allied Media Project office [3], Hannan House [4], and Boggs Center [5].
2. Organize to End Sexual Assault: Participate in the Cooperative Leadership Track with Philly Stands Up
National Call to Action to Confront Campus-Based Sexual Assault: Friday, November 4, 10 am - 5 pm
For decades, students and faculty on college campuses have been investing their energy and hearts into confronting sexual assault. However the systems of calling hotlines, reporting harm to campus authorities and working to shift the shame connected with surviving sexual assault aren't solving our problems. How do we get the support we need on (and off) college campuses? How can we meaningfully prevent sexual assault from happening? How can we respond to it effectively and creatively when it happens, and do so more adequately than campus officials or the police?
In this day-long intensive workshop, we will strategize past the limitations and challenges of organizing against sexual assault in co-op communities and confront key questions of how to change our framework. This is a Call to Action, for all folks who are involved in responding to Sexual Assault in their friend networks, on college campuses, and in student housing, including student co-ops. We invite people of all genders to be a part of this conversation because campus sexual assault affect all of us. Our goal are 1) to have participants leave this full day training with practical skills & tools and educational tactics & solutions; 2) to strengthen the connections among participants and foster a national movement to end campus sexual assault and 3) to have a team of students who are invested in continuing this conversation nationally, and among campus co-ops at NASCO Institute next year!
3. Watch a Documentary at the Institute Film Festival
Friday, November 4, 9:00 pm - 11:30 pm
The Friday night film festival this year is screening three phenomenal films:
What The Cell?, a documentary on how cell phone signals travel, what spectrum is, and how regulation and current business models shape what we can do with phones today. The video is a collaboration of Center for Urban Pedagogy, Helki Frantzen, and students from Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The students explored wireless infrastructure and technology by looking at the mechanics, politics, and economics of cell phones. Trained as investigative journalists, they interviewed different stakeholders; inspected a Verizon high-security switching station; and visited cell phone testing labs at Consumer's Union. This accessible and informative documentary is composed of the skits, diagrams, collages, and animations they created.
10 Tactics, a 50-minute film documenting stories from around the world about how people can take information and utilize technology to extend their mission around the country. The documentary provides original and artful ways for rights advocates to capture attention and communicate a cause through a variety of media sources in order to raise awareness.
Fixed, a documentary that explores disability, ableism, eugenics and transhumanism in the context of emerging human enhancement technologies. What does "disabled" mean when a man with no legs can run faster than many Olympic sprinters? With prenatal screening able to predict hundreds of probable conditions, who should determine what kind of people get to be born? If you could augment your body's abilities in any way imaginable what would you do? From pre-implantation genetic diagnosis to neural implants and bionic limbs, researchers around the world are hard at work developing a myriad of technologies to fix or enhance the human body, but what does it mean to design "better humans" and do we want to?
4. Gain Grassroots Media Skills
All weekend!
Whether you prefer to get your hands dirty making media, or doing it all digital, there will be something for you! This year's Institute will feature workshops and skill shares on:
• Making comics and zines
• Storytelling
• Blogging and Wordpress
• Mapping
• Audio production, podcasting, webstreaming, and audio editing
• Basic digital film making and design
• Screen printing
5. Play Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives
Saturday, November 5, 8:00 pm
Co-opoly is a fun and educational game about the growing co-op movement! In order to survive as individuals and to strive for the success of their cooperative, players make tough choices while putting their teamwork abilities to the test. This is a game of skill and solidarity, where everyone wins - or everybody loses. By playing Co-opoly, players will learn about the unique benefits, challenges, and operations of the cooperative world and how the co-op model can strengthen communities and organizations - as well as the skills needed to participate in a co-op!
6. Represent Your Co-op at the Annual General Meeting
Sunday, November 6, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm
The Annual General Meeting is a chance to get plugged in and turned on to the bigger picture of NASCO. It is a time to learn more about the laws that govern the NASCO universe and the nuts and bolts that keep the co-op movement together. It is a time to think and speak together as a broad and diverse membership about where we would like to see NASCO go in terms of co-op education, development, and organizing. The AGM is evolving towards a participatory, member driven, democratic space. This year we will have the opportunity to discuss planning for the 2012 International Year of Cooperatives and how to organize a bash (mini-Institute) in your region.
Each active member of NASCO can send one representative to the AGM. AGM reps can attend Institute for a significantly reduced fee ($110).
7. Amplify Institute: Volunteer on the Institute Documentation Team
All weekend!
This year we're putting together an Institute documentation team to make sure that we record and amplify all of the amazing skills and knowledge sharing that take place over our three short days together. Are you a photographer, videographer, blogger or audio producer? Contact Salam[at]nasco.coop to get involved
8. Shop (or Contribute to) the Do-It-Yourself Fair
All weekend! (or by Septemer 20th)
The Commons this year will feature a smorgasbord of DIY treasures, made with love by our talented members and board. We'll be selling these fabulous DIY creations as part of a board-initiated fundraising effort to increase the available low-income scholarships to attend institute, increase compensation to hard-working employees to "liveable wage" standards, and cover increasing overhead costs of offering education and anti-oppression events.
NASCO is currently seeking donations of your homemade treasures--'zines, artwork, jewelery, t-shirts, buttons, bookmarks--to sell at the Fair. Please send your expression of what you will donate,how many, the suggested price and your full contact information to Erin at erinhancock1[at]gmail.com by September 20.
What is Institute? Miss our sneak preview of NASCO Institute in the last issue of Co-op Voices? You can still read about this year's theme and course tracks and our keynote speaker, Adrienne Maree Brown here [5]
Registration [5] is now open online at nasco.coop/institute. This year, registration will close one week prior to Institute, on October 28--so don't forget to register! Register early--before October 5--and save $50 on registration fees. You can also find information on how to apply for Institute scholarships [5] on our website.